Yes, Obamacare Covered AOC. Like Everyone, She Just Hates It

Even as the coronavirus lockdowns have postponed many holiday events in 2020, some traditions still remain. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., continued what is quickly becoming an end-of-year tradition for her last Thursday, when she complained about her health coverage:

The tweet followed a similar missive last year, in which she showed she didn’t understand how the Obamacare exchanges work, and one in December 2018 talking about the open enrollment process for members of Congress.

Apart from the not-semantic distinction in her tweet—access to good health insurancedoes not necessarily guarantee access to good health care—Ocasio-Cortez’s prime complaint appears to lie with New York state’s insurance regulations, which jacked up the price of health coverage for most residents well before Obamacare took effect.

Of course, those regulations also represent a de facto form of socialist redistribution, meaning that Congress’ “democratic socialist” doesn’t particularly care for socialism when it affects her health coverage.

New York Ruined Its Small Insurance Market

Ocasio-Cortez graduated from Boston University in 2011—after Obamacare’s enactment, but before the law’s exchanges and major regulations took effect in January 2014. Her tweet therefore claims she could not afford coverage for most of the time between the spring of 2011, when she moved back to the Bronx, and her inauguration to Congress in January 2019.